


Lunar Gifts

by caesia



Series: Moon Cycles [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 15:10:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesia/pseuds/caesia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon gives his children gifts to celebrate the arrival of winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lunar Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> This is a much-requested sequel to another work I wrote for a Game of Ships challenge, By the Light of the Moon. You can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1020379). Feedback is always welcome, and remember to join my squealing and fangirling on [tumblr](http://www.caesiamusa.tumblr.com) anytime you like. Thanks for reading!

Growing up in a time of war taught Sansa not to dwell on regrets. Certainly, there were moments in her past that she considered mistakes, that she wished sometimes she might change, but to ruminate on could-have-beens benefited no one. Whatever role her conversation with Queen Cersei had played in her father’s death, however many innocents might have been saved if she hadn’t trusted Petyr and agreed to his plans: the answers to these questions wouldn’t give her peace, even if they could be reckoned. So Sansa put them out of her mind, and closed the door on her painful past.

Her practice at putting her decisions behind her helped prevent regret from coloring her relationship with Jon. It had been hasty, and a little foolish, probably, to decide to link their lives together. He couldn’t be her husband in the normal way, though they’d said the words before the heart tree as soon as they’d reached Winterfell’s charred walls. He couldn’t be a father, either, as far as the law was concerned, but he’d given her children nonetheless.

In this, Mother Moon had blessed them. Sansa had worried about conceiving, for they had so few opportunities to couple, but only half a turn after she’d stopped drinking moon tea she’d found herself with child, and two more had followed in time. Torrhen, she named her first-born, so that whatever dragon held the Iron Throne when he came to manhood would remember that Starks could kneel as well as rule. Next came Lya, bright as morning while Torrhen was dark as night, named Alysanne for the good Targaryen who’d visited the North and helped the Night’s Watch. She called their youngest son Willam after the king who’d fought invaders from across the wall.

“Willam was the brother that died in battle,” Jon reminded her the first time he cradled the auburn head in human hands.

Sansa wrinkled her nose. “I’m not calling any son of ours Artos, no matter his famed implacability. At least half the old kings died in battle, anyway. If we weren’t to use any of their names, there’d be none left to choose from.”

Left unspoken were the names of Starks who died from treachery. Eddard and Robert, Bran and Rickon. Their ghosts wore heavy on Sansa’s heart, slipping around the doors that protected her from the past on nights when Ghost was away hunting in the wolfswood.

She chose their first names carefully, but her children would all be Starks. This was part of the deal she’d struck with Daenerys, after she and her dragons had burned away the last remains of the Others. Northmen had joined her in the Battle for the Dawn, as they called it, and those same Northmen refused to accept the lordship of anyone but a Stark of Winterfell. The Dragon Queen seethed that the daughter of one of her sworn enemies would return to power, but there were already stories circulating from her time in the East, saying that fire and blood were all very well for conquest, but a different tactic was needed if the Queen was to rule for more than a season. Sansa was given Winterfell, the legitimization of any children she might have, and the responsibility for ensuring the fealty of the North.

_What would the Queen think if she knew I share that responsibility with her nephew?_ Sansa wonders, sitting alone in her solar with a stack of letters. Winter is coming: the white raven announcing the end of a two-year summer arrived months ago, and the King’s Road has already seen snow as far south as Moat Cailin. They’ll have to invite the Northern lords to attend a feast once winter is officially announced, to supply them with aid and to hear them take oaths once more to the Queen.

Ghost had gone into her chambers minutes ago, and Sansa shuffles through the letters once more as she waits for her husband to emerge. Jon doesn’t like her to watch him transform, though she’s see it happen a few times, when they’ve clung together in bed almost until the sun rises. She tries to respect his wishes in this, just as he’d tried to understand when she’d banished him from her chambers each time her birthing pains had begun.

The door makes a reluctant noise as it swings open, and there he is, her husband, furry and feral but human all the same. Sansa scoops up the jar of beeswax balm she keeps in her desk drawer and hurries to his side.

“Come here, my love,” she murmurs softly, guiding him back to the bed. Words used to return to him as soon as his body changed, but now Sansa has to help him remember himself. She strokes his forehead, covered by messy locks streaked with grey and white, and down his bearded cheeks. Her fingers work circles into his temples, and then across his top and bottom jaw, pressing firmly against the bones there. Once his eyes are able to focus and meet with hers, she leans forward to kiss him. First it’s a simple meeting of mouths, warm and still, while Jon breathes noisily through his nose. Eventually Sansa takes his bottom lip between hers and kisses him tenderly, thoroughly, until he relaxes and she can re-teach him the dance of tongues and lips and teeth.

Mindful of the limits of their time together, Sansa pulls away. She turns her attention from his face to his body, urging him to stretch his shoulders and make wide circles with his arms. His joints pop and crack as he explores his new range of motion, hands hanging from his wrists curled in stiff balls. They’re the reason for the balm she warms between her palms. He holds them in front of him, a vulnerable offering, and she massages each pad and finger, coaxing each knuckle back into movement. Once he can flex them himself, he pulls her back to him for another swift kiss.

“Good evening, Lady Stark.” His playful tone contradicts the formal words.

“Good evening, my lord husband. Perhaps you’d care to look over a few matters of business, before we visit the children?”

Jon sighs. “I am so inconstant with my advice. It might serve you better to show your papers to another counselor, instead of waiting for the end of the month to review them with me.”

“Your words may be irregular, my lord, but I trust none other with Winterfell’s affairs. Come, dress. The sooner we finish, the sooner we may go to the nursery.”

Jon slips on the shirt and breeches she left folded on the bed, and covers his shoulders with a fur cloak. Then he follows her back out to her desk. She serves him a cup of wine as he picks up the first letter from the pile. He brings it close to his eyes, then extends the paper at arm’s length, moving it back and forth until the letters resolve for him. She likes to tease him, from time to time, about the trouble he has getting his eyes to focus, but they have a thick stack of letters to get through, and it’s their first night together in a month. Teasing can wait.

They make it through half the stack, Sansa writing notes in the margins while Jon thinks out loud to her. A knock on the door disturbs them, and they look up to find Torrhen peeking in the door.

“I was right! It’s papa! Hurry up, Lya!” he yells, motioning violently at his sister who must have followed him from the nursery.

Jon knows his children well. As babies, they nestled in Ghost’s fur, protected by his curving legs. They learned to walk by clutching his tail as he led them in patient, endless circles around Sansa’s solar, his head turned all the way around to watch them as they tottered. He spends his nights as a wolf prowling the corridors between Sansa’s room and his sleeping children, keeping watch over them both. Still, nothing he did on four legs could replace the time he spent with them as a man on those precious nights before the full moon.

_Papa_ , they call him, _Father_ , and no man has ever smiled wider at his children’s voices. Now he grabs his son in on arm, growling into his neck while the boy squirms in embarrassment, before leaning down to scoop up his daughter in the other. Little Lya coos and rubs his fuzzy cheeks in delight.

Jon looks between them. “I count only two of you. Where is my third wolf cub? Is he in the godswood, playing in the springs? Or maybe he’s running through the snow, hunting for his dinner?”

“ _No_ , papa,” they shriek together, “He’s in the nursery!”

“Then we must find him, and bid him goodnight,” Jon replies solemnly.

Torrhen wriggles down and races out of the room, determined to get there first, but Lya snuggles against him, happy to be carried. She’s much like Sansa as a little girl, all sweetness and light. The only exception to this is her absolute fascination with mud; she jumps in it, rolls it between her fingers, forms little cakes with it that she lays in the sun to dry and keeps in her pockets to throw at her brother. The servants joke that she should have been born a Crannogman, but Sansa tells her she has the talents of Bran the builder, who channeled the hot springs and raised the walls of Winterfell itself.

On their way to the nursery, they come across a serving girl with an empty tray. Wide-eyed, she curtsies to Sansa, murmuring _my lady_ , and nods in Jon’s direction, saying not a word. After they pass, she scurries away. Jon and Sansa exchange a look, but they say nothing. Jon is known to the people of Winterfell, after a fashion. Sansa maintains that her children were fathered by a wolf, but most everyone who works there has seen Jon walking the halls on a moonlit night. _The ghost of Winterfell_ , they call him. Some go further, and name him a tragic prince who died before he came into his claim. _The rightful king_ , whisper some few others, and they find themselves sent to work for the Umbers, far from any ears who might report to the Queen.

Willam is bouncing happily in his brother’s arms when they arrive. Jon sets Lya down and greets his baby son with a gentle tap on his nose. For a time, they play together, Lya stacking blocks into a tall tower while Torrhen narrates the awful battle that faces the men stationed there, and Willam tugs on Jon’s long curls, fascinated. Finally, Sansa takes their youngest from his father’s arms.

“It’s time he eats before he goes to bed,” she remarks. Sitting in the wide chair next to his cradle, she adjusts her dress and pulls her son to her breast. Jon joins the older children as they build their tower, but his eyes wander often to the peaceful scene.

Sansa remembers his distraction when they return to her chambers for the night, changing into her loosest shift. Jon told her once, after Lya was born, how potent she smelled to his wolf when she nursed their children.

“You smell like motherhood. Warmth and comfort and safety and love, but concentrated. It’s powerful stuff, the milk you give to our babes.” Then he’d nestled between her breasts, the way her children did after a meal, and slept.

Tonight they don’t sleep, slowly reminding each other of their bodies, touching with curiosity as often as with passion. It’s a shame, Sansa sometimes used to think, that Jon is so taciturn when he can talk so infrequently, but she’s learned to understand him through his touches, too, so his silences troubles her less and less.

He’s already gone when she wakes early in the morning, before the sun has risen. He’s probably sought out Sam, she knows, since they didn’t see each other the night before. She dawdles as she dresses, struck by melancholy as she always is the mornings after his transformations, but her mood is swiftly interrupted at breakfast. The raven has arrived. Winter is here.

Reluctantly, she sets aside her plans for the day and turns instead to planning a grand evening meal. Winter should be short, she hopes, but it still strikes fear into the hearts of all who live in the North. Greeting it with merriness and extra ale will help stave off her people’s fears.

Normally, Sansa avoids hosting feasts when Jon will be present. They drag on, late into the night, wasting time she could spend with her husband, but tonight it will be inevitable. Before the feast begins, she gathers her children in her solar to wait for his change.

“Papa’s brought you all gifts,” she explains, “but you must promise to be on your best behavior tonight.”

They nod, twitching and squirming with anticipation. Willam gurgles in Sansa’s arms.

Jon emerges, already dressed and bearing three packages wrapped in grey cloth and tied with white ribbon. Before he hands them out, he addresses his children.

“What are the words of the direwolf?”

“Winter is coming,” Torrhen and Lya reply dutifully.

Jon nods. “This morning, a white raven arrived all the way from the Citadel. Our words have come true. Winter has come.”

The children look half scared, half excited. Neither of them can remember winter, though they are now familiar with autumn snows.

“On the day that winter comes, we give each other gifts, to remind each other that we don’t face the cold alone, but with the support of our families and friends.” Jon explains. Then he presents Torrhen and Lya with their bundles.

They race to unwrap the presents as fast as they can. Lya wins by a hair. “Boots!” she laughs, picking up a fine pair of leather boots designed to lace all the way up her calves. “For jumping in the mud!”

“Or for walking through the snow,” Jon chuckles, “which will cover the mud soon enough.”

Torrhen is silent, fingering the intricate links of a hauberk. “Real armor,” he finally says, awed.

“It’s important to train with something heavier than a shirt on your back. It takes practice, moving in plate and leather. This is the first step.”

In the meantime, Sansa unties the bow on Willam’s gift and presents him with a silver rattle, carved to look like a leaping direwolf whose tail formed  the handle. He shakes it merrily.

“We wish you all a warm winter,” Sansa says, intoning the traditional greeting. The children are still practicing saying the words when their nurse arrives to fetch them for the feast.

“Warm winter, my wife,” Jon says. “And thank you, for arranging the gifts and letting me give them out.”

“Believe it or not, my parents had the same arrangement. Father may have handed out the gifts, but they were all mother’s ideas,” Sansa smiles. “I have to go greet the guests. Will you still be awake when I return?”

“Of course, Sansa. Hurry back.”

“I will.” She seals her promise with a kiss. 


End file.
